Back to Little League World Series and The Big Belisle

I've never had a firm grasp on "The Rules." I don't like them all that much when they don't make much sense to me. So it takes me a little longer to get there, and sometimes, I never arrive at all. Occasionally, I even manage to get into a whole lot of hot water. It's worth it. Back to the conviction that it's being jaded that creates the worst adults among us. The true hags of society.

Back to not playing by the rules when they don't make sense.

Back to a seventh grader being able to articulate the greatest struggle of humanity by writing an original song. Back to a 12 year-old having the humility to edit perfection. Back to admitting the frustration borne of loss, and the need, at any age, for teachers to remember and remind that who you were in the beginning was the very best you would ever be. It's easy to know your name; it's hard to be able to determine what it will stand for, and how hard you are willing to fight for it. 

The Cumberland American Little League stood in tears before their coach, David Belisle, after their 8-7 loss to Jackie Robinson West of Chicago, Illinois in the LL World Series. We are taught that if we fight really hard for something, and invest everything we have into accomplishing the desired result, victory is inevitable. The tears on the boys' faces, caught in that delicate brink of manhood, but rooted still to the rawness and honesty that only a child can express, placed their coach in the almost impossible position of using words to irrevocably alter the path of their manhoods. Turning points have that kind of power, and adults poised to affect the outcome bear a substantial responsibility. Those who do it right are heroes.

Back to Coach David Belisle setting a standard - and reminding those of us who may have forgotten - that A is about fighters. Sportsmanship. Never quitting. Back to playing the game the right way. The full story below. Back to time well spent never being in vain - a wonderful clip embodying the very best of the American spirit:

Click here for direct youtube link.  Rave on, Coach Belisle. Back to for the sheer fun of it being the reason to keep playing:

They love fighters

They like sportsman

They like guys who don't quit

They like guys who play the game right way.

...it's okay to cry. We're going to be friends forever. 

   

Rave on in the spirit of. . . doing it over and over and over again, as many times as it takes, because, well, it's fun. Rave on, Van Morrison. Drive on with wild abandon, uptempo, frenzied heels. Because it's awesome. Taking the time to listen to a song about a poet who died many centuries ago, but knew a thing or two about life, is a first step Back to A. The skeptics scroll onward in their rush to arrive at the end as if the bottom line is on par with enlightenment.

It's not. Never was. Back to taking a minute out of your busy day and listening. 

In the beginning, we do and act from the heart. It's maddening. Heartening. Uplifting. And sometimes, crushing.

It is learned behaviors and disappointments that instruct over time that it's best to hold back, to test the waters, to mistrust, to temper, to measure our spirits and hold back as if the end goal and the victor's circle are reserved only for the most controlled. The obedient. The ones who say it briefly. Back to believing brevity may be the soul of wit, but truth. . . well, that takes time, and patience, and the subtlety of thought and expression and effort. Patience for tangential thought and appreciation for the way it meanders and explores, but ultimately arrives at its destination is the soul of honesty.

We are molded to emulate those we perceive to have "won" the game, as if the emulation itself will be the impetus required to arrive at the destination. We are taught to associate only with winning teams, to spend far too much time and effort seeking approval and respect from ones who never deserved it in the first place. . . and to politely turn our heads and shun the ones with faces still marred by dust, sweat, and blood:

Back to tears when we have lost, because tears are okay and human.

Back to looking up to the few teachers who still remember why we began the journey, allowed us to embrace the defeat, then celebrated amidst its embers because therein lies the spark. Back to "let me see your eyes, guys," and the heroes among us who permit the equally critical placement of anguish, exhaustion, and bitter disappointment in that coveted arena we are taught is open only for the gold medalists.

If you want to see sparks, you have to have the patience to wait and the guts to endure a thousand defeats. You have to make like Heinz Ketchup and believe that good things come to those who wait. Back to 1986, remember?

Coldplay understands this because you have to wait a good long time before Chris Martin tells you what he saw. . . even if the title of the song gives it away. Because it's not the same as when he finally says it. When he says it, it's magic. Magic is reserved for those who wait. 

 

Do you?

Back to the men and women among us who empower and ignite, but also teach the importance of decency, fairness, and acknowledgement for those who push us to be better. . . congratulations to Bill Haley, director of Jackie Robinson West, and his father, who founded the team in 1971, and most of all, to the the young men from Chicago, Illinois and a well-played match.

Back to fine sportsmanship being a benchmark for those who truly love the game. Back to rising through defeat and knowing that how to lose is every bit as important a lesson as knowing how to win.

For those of us still on the journey? We talk too much - long after the game is over. We make a lot of noise. We push limits. We disturb the peace. We are avoided. We fumble long past the expiration date permitted for fumbling. We are foolish. We are flawed. We have questions. We wonder. We want to understand before we follow. We are explosions in your peaceful spaces. We will never stop.

Back to we are the crazy ones...because call us what you may, we will change the world in a way your mind will never conceive:

How? We have fun. Real joy, and a real fighting spirit, are not controlled things. WE drive on with wild abandon, uptempo, frenzied heels. We are feared, too, because it's a forgotten way of winning. A victor's lap you all knew how to run, but were taught to forget by teachers who gave up too early and pushed you to follow, not question, the rules. Back to pushing the limits of every accepted comfort zone, because we believe in change, be it decor, lifestyle, justice, sports, or our individual pursuits. Some people talk about capturing the essence of youth. Others just live as if they are.

We are forever young. We do not get deterred when we are told we are wrong. There is no arrogance in moral conviction. Only truth.

And in our own slow and steady true course, we always win because we know sometimes a step backward is the only way forward. 

A is for always. 

Discovering and Defining My Decor Style

Who doesn't wince when Howard Roark tells the dean of the architecture school that the Parthenon is "rotten?" But it's thrilling, too, because then you can't stop reading.  You have to know why.  Insubordination, when justified intelligently - whether I agree with it or not - has always inspired me. I love Kerouac best for his ode to eccentricity - articulated so simply, so beautifully - that one must pause and revel in the sheer wonder of his words.

And in decor, I constantly find myself inspired by the Hollywood Regency style.  Roark would not approve because he does not believe in emulating past styles, but I find myself constantly drawn to it for a reason that is very Howard Roark indeed:  it embraces personal joy.  I am not taking any magazine page or book illustrating the style and copying it to a tee - but I love that it champions riots of color streaked with insubordination.  A throne instead of a chair.  A chandelier lamp.  A mirror splashed unevenly with silver paint (by me) just because I thought it might look cool.  Experimentation. Ridiculous proportions. A pink wall. Why not? 

Yes, Roark would indeed choke with disgust at the foyer above for the amalgamation of styles, and I'm not looking to re-create that, either. But I kinda dig its spirit. 

Behold the birth of Back to A decor style: 

Only bring items into your home which delight you, and let each one have a story.  When I am done, every piece piece of furniture - each accessory, even - will have a tale.   And if you haven't read the scene in The Fountainhead between Roark and his dean, grab a cup of coffee and allow me to share.  It's about architecture, but not at all. It’s me at fifteen, reading a book that would change my life. 


Howard Roark Gets Expelled:
My favorite scene in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead


"But I don't understand. Why do you want me to think that this is great architecture?" He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon.



"That," said the Dean, "is the Parthenon."


"So it is."


"I haven't the time to waste on silly questions."


"All right, then." Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked to the picture. "Shall I tell you what's rotten about it?"


"It's the Parthenon!" said the Dean.


"Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon!"


The ruler struck the glass over the picture.

"Look," said Roark. "The famous flutings on the famous columns — what are they there for? To hide the joints in wood — when columns were made of wood, only these aren't, they're marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?"

The Dean sat watching him curiously. Something puzzled him, not in the words, but in Roark's manner of saying them.


"Rules?" said Roark. "Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the material determine the shape. Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it's made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail. A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single theme, and to serve its own single purpose. A man doesn't borrow pieces of his body. A building doesn't borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window and stairway to express it."



"But all the proper forms of expression have been discovered long ago."


"Expression — of what? The Parthenon did not serve the same purpose as its wooden ancestor. An airline terminal does not serve the same purpose as the Parthenon. Every form has its own meaning. Every man creates his meaning and form and goal. Why is it so important — what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right — so long as it's not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic — and only of addition at that? Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else? There must be some reason. I don't know. I've never known it. I'd like to understand."


"For heaven's sake," said the Dean. "Sit down....That's better....Would you mind very much putting that ruler down?...Thank you....Now listen to me. No one has ever denied the importance of modern technique to an architect. We must learn to adapt the beauty of the past to the needs of the present. The voice of the past is the voice of the people. Nothing has ever been invented by one man in architecture. The proper creative process is a slow, gradual, anonymous, collective one, in which each man collaborates with all the others and subordinates himself to the standards of the majority."


"But you see," said Roark quietly, "I have, let's say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I've chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I'm only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards — and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one."


"You know," the dean said, "You would sound much more convincing if you spoke as if you cared whether I agreed with you or not."


"That's true," said Roark. "I don't care whether you agree with me or not." He said it so simply that it did not sound offensive, it sounded like the statement of a fact which he noticed, puzzled, for the first time.


"You don't care what others think — which might be understandable. But you don't care even to make them think as you do?"


"No."


"But that's...that's monstrous."


"Is it? Probably. I couldn't say."


"I'm glad of this interview," said the Dean, suddenly, too loudly. "It has relieved my conscience. I believe, as others stated at the meeting, that the profession of architecture is not for you. I have tried to help you. Now I agree with the Board. You are a man not to be encouraged. You are dangerous."


"To whom?" asked Roark.


To everyone stuck at Z, I suppose. 

Walls Are The Ultimate Canvas

I'm the girl who will buy a piece of art before purchasing a vacuum cleaner, or cutlery, or even a table for that matter.  In the real world this kind of behavior is regarded as irresponsible, but when you're Back to A it's a victory of the sensibilities. I'm also the girl who can get a little bored in a museum (gasp! yeah I said it and I'm not sorry) but can wander street fairs and flea markets for hours. Overly air-conditioned places with signs that read "please no photographs" and "to the trade only" annoy me.  I'm a collector.  A seeker.  I'm forever searching for aesthetic expressions which define, as Ayn Rand states in The Romantic Manifesto, "This is what life means to me." When I find them, I want to own them. Or at least take a picture.

You should read it, by the way.  The book is paper thin and while you may not agree with everything she says.  I say glory to the woman who dares to define art - according to Rand, there is such a thing as bad art. I could tell you, but I'd rather you discover for yourself. Don't roll your eyes; it's your choice to be on a novice decor site written by a nerd. And in typical nerd fashion, I, too, am going to propose my theory in art: ELEVATE THE NEXT GENERATION. Search and support the new artists, the junior artists, the ones right out of school, the ones who dabble in clay and paint instead of computers and cubicles.  Simpy put: creating art can take time, and we are living in a world which puts a premium on speed.  We cannot lose the artists.

In my new home, in this new life, I am going to fill my walls with "This is what life means to me" expressions by the brave new world of emerging - unknown, even -  artists. A favorite source of mine is KiptonArt's Junior Artists section.  Here you can browse photography, oil on canvas, watercolor, and a multitude of mediums created by relatively new artists. The prices are more affordable than pieces by well-known and established artists, and the possibility for discovery is arguably greater. . . what a joy to fall in love with a piece by an artist who is also Back to A, beginning a journey of their own? Today I discovered this amazing 16' x 20' oil on canvas by Julia Haw entitled simply, "The Dogwoods."

I love so many things about it.  I love that Julia Haw shares that her first art studio was in her parents' basement in a small town in Michigan.  I love that her artistic focus is on "ephemerality" (one of my all time favorite words) and the "turbulence and transitions emotions play" on the human psyche.  I love how peaceful the woman is in the painting, and the dogwood blossoms that rain down on her are beautiful, yet fragile reminders of how everything can change in a heartbeat.  Frost expresses this sentiment with absolute precision in Nothing Gold Can Stay:

Nature's first green is gold

Her hardest hue to hold

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay.

Ephemeral indeed, Mr. Frost. But I also love dogwood blossoms for their ability to bloom in the fog. . .

. . .beauty amidst darkness and ambiguity. Petals, tender in the night, but fiercely clinging to a remembered spring day. Then finally, for the bittersweet legend of Christ's cross, expressed best in this poem:

In Jesus' time, the dogwood grew

To a stately size and a lovely hue.

'Twas strong and firm it's branches interwoven

for the cross of Christ its timbers were chosen.

Seeing the distress as this use of their wood

Christ made a promise which still holds good:

"Never again shall the dogwood grow

Large enough to be used so.

Slender and twisted, it shall be

With blossoms like the cross for all to see.

As blood stains the petals marked in brown

The blossom's center wears a thorny crown.

All who see it will remember Me.

Crucified on a cross from the dogwood tree.

Cherished and protected, this tree shall be

A reminder to all of my agony."

-Author unknown

The legend only makes me love the painting more, because now I see the woman as a modern Mary Magdalene: flawed and vulnerable, but peaceful in the knowledge that resurrection will be revealed first to her.

Yes, to someone else this might just be a naked chic on an acid trip with psychedelic flowers falling down on her - apologies to anyone offended by lack of proper transition from Bible to acid trips - censor buttons are boring - but you see what I mean.  When you discover art that reveals so much every time you look at it, it's even more necessary than a vacuum or cutlery or even that thing that holds the Bounty paper towels.  I need to get that.

This is what life means to me now.  Resurrecting a little each day.